Come in for a Spell

We create our reality with our stories, both individually and collectively. What we give our attention to influences what we feel and how we feel, what we do, and what we say. We tell ourselves good stories, or bad stories. In fact our reality is largely influenced by our history, our collective stories, i.e., our his-stories and her-stories that we have written in history books, and / or told by word of mouth, even what we tell ourselves, i.e., my-stories. However these stories can change, and do change. 

The history of the world, photo by Julie O. /chthonickore

The stories we tell ourselves can be either limiting or inspirational. Is it simply a mystery what makes up one's reality? When we tell stories we are doing something very powerful. We are spelling out, informing (telling) our present, that place where we are . . .  and where we are influences our future. Whatever the future holds, we are writing that story right now, but people often don't respect what powerful creators we are. 

Spell has a complex history and has evolved different common usages over time. Generally when we think of "spell" we mean, spell (v.1), early 14c."read by letter, write or say the letters of," the meaning of which seems to have come by way of (according to the online etymology dictionary) a French word, espeller, rather than the Old English spellian "to tell, speak, discourse, talk", espeller, meaning "mean, signify, explain, interpret," also, "spell out letters, pronounce, recite", both said to come from the same  Germanic root, *spellam "to tell", from PIE *spel-(2) "to say aloud, recite." 


A spell (n.1) is a "story, saying, tale, history, narrative, fable; discourse, command," from Old English spell, as in gospel (good + spell), the good news. Good stories are inspirational and have the power to change the world in seemingly magical ways. We have magic at our fingertips and enchantments spilling from our lips every time we write, or speak. 

A good spell written by my sister at the beginning of a blank book, now full of other spells.

Yet how many people believe this? Many have the idea that history is solid objective reality. History is something that simply happens to us. What we think, what we do, what we concentrate upon, or let into our lives, isn't really important. It is out of our hands. 

Is this a bad boy? What's the story? 

And in a way this is true if you hand over your power to "his" story, and don't think for yourself. But, history is largely made up of people's stories, and these "tellings" (spells) are creative. They have the power to create positively, or negatively which impacts both personal reality and the reality of the world. 

Even if you just think of it on this simple level . . . have you ever walked into a room of angry or sad people and felt it? How did it make you feel? Inspired? Did it give you energy, or did it bring you down? I think we all know this, we would rather walk into a room with people who were happy, or hopeful. What we experience influences our actions, how much energy we have, and a whole host of other things. 

Why are people more likely to finish their race when people are rooting for them? Why is it harder when people are telling you that they expect you to fail and you're a looser? What is in our environment, and therefore too, what we choose to bring into our environments influences us, changes our histories, changes our worlds. So, you are in fact a powerful creator when you are conscious of this, when you are a conscious creator. We are the movers and shakers.

A phoenix, related to the benu bird of ancient Egypt who cried out (spoke the spell, the word) and creation came into existence

Spell didn't come into usage as a term for magic spells, a "set of words with supposed magical or occult powers, incantation, charm" until the 1570's, but undoubtedly the notion was still there before this time. When a person preforms / casts a spell they are trying to affect reality. They want to change the story in a take charge kind of way. Whatever you say about these magicians, they know that they are responsible in very significant ways for what "reality" they experience. 

In biblical Hebrew kashaph means, "to practice sorcery, sorcerer, sorceress", from a primitive root meaning properly "to whisper a spell". 

Pharaoh then summoned wise men [chakam] and sorcerers [kashaph], and the Egyptian magicians[chartom] also did the same things by their secret arts [lahat]. Exodus 7:11

The Children's Bible, Western Publishing Company, Inc. pp 108-109, photo by Julie O.

What else is this word kashaph (sorcerer) / whisperer reminiscent off? It is like the snake in the Garden of Eden, the nachash, the word nachash coming from the sound a snake makes. A snake is a "hisser (kshhhh, chash)." Nachash also has the meaning of "practice divination, enchanter." In this case the snake was an enchanter / bewitcher / speller. The snake cunningly whispered to Eve hiss story and changed the history of mankind, i.e., the human / man (ha adam), the people whom God had created.

For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil  Genesis 3:5

Lahat, above [Exodus 7:11], is translated as "magic arts", or "enchantments," and has the literal meaning of "a flame, flaming" It is interestingly the same word used to describe the "flaming whirling sword", the haphak [to turn] cherub [sword] which was used to guard the way to the tree of life along with the kerub [cherubim], after Adam and Eve were cast out.

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:24

Shaddowscapes Tarot Deck, Two of Swords: stalemate, an impasse, difficult decisions, avoidance, weighing options

So, these cherubim, i.e., "swords [cherub] of God (?)," "messengers [angels] who are like swords [cherub], or who smite down [charab] for God (?)," they guard the way to the tree of life with a flaming [lahat], i.e., "enchanted" turning sword. And the kapash [spell whispers, sorcerers] of Egypt, also did their magic by certain "flaming [lahat]," enchantments, when they copied the tricks Aaron was preforming by the power of YHWH, who was finally the greater / better speller. 

They threw down their staffs, which also became serpents! But then Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.  Exodus 7:12

And notice this, chartom is translated as "magician," but actually means "engraver, writer". How interesting, the engravers, i.e., carvers of the hieroglyphs were thought of as magicians. They must have been pretty good spellers too.

Hieroglyphics is the name given to the writings of the ancient Egyptians by the Greeks, from hieros "sacred, filled with the divine, holy" + glyphe "carving".  The Egyptians themselves called their writing mdju netjer "words of the gods."

The ancient Egyptians believed that writing was invented by the god Thoth, and called their hieroglyphic script "mdju netjer" ("words of the gods"). The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek hieros (sacred) plus glypho (inscriptions) and was first used by Clement of Alexandria. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian.htm

Weighing of the Heart Ceremony [detail], Thoth "Lord of Divine Words", i.e., writing, recording the outcome

Its most important function was to provide a means by which certain concepts or events could be brought into existence. The Egyptians believed that if something were committed to writing it could be repeatedly "made to happen" by means of magic. Egyptologist Rosalie David https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ancient.eu/amp/1-15434/ 

So, for the Egyptians their writings were literally spells. And the hieroglyphic system lended itself well to this kind of spelling. It was a more holistic type of written communication than written English, or maybe we could say, it incorporated more right-brained (nonverbal, feelings, intuition, visualization) features along with the left-brained (verbal, logical, linear) than English does. For one thing, English uses the Roman alphabet which is more evolved and, therefore, removed from the pictorial meanings behind the letters, or the pictograms they evolved from. The letters we use in English can seem to be arbitrary in shape. We learn the names and sounds of the letters and construct words, and the words can then create pictures in our minds, but the symbols themselves are not usually associated with objects or animals. They are simply letters that represent different sounds of the spoken language [however there is a great amount of history written / encoded etymologically in English which is very magical, and with our black mirrors (smartphones), it's never been easier to access this magic].

Mdju netjer (hieroglyphic writing) was both pictorial (a picture says a thousand words) and phonetic. Phonograms, logograms, and ideograms made up the basis for hieroglyphic script. 

Sometimes the symbols / pictures were used to represent one, two or even three letter combinations (phonograms). In English, th, ch, sh are examples of phonograms. Other times certain symbols were used to represent a whole word or phrase (logogram), such as how we use the Arabic number symbols (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). We say "nine" when we see the symbol "9". We can read this logographic sentence, 👁🧡 U, or the same phrase in one symbol, 🤟. 
Sometimes the symbols were meant to represent a concept (ideograms) and were used as determinatives which were not spoken, but rather gave certain extra context, or meaning to the sentence, not unlike how we use certain emojis 😀. 
Determinatives were also used to distinguish homophones (words having the same pronunciation but different meanings), such as fly [the insect 🦟] and fly [the verb 🛩], and they could also serve as word dividers (in English we often just use a blank / white space). 

Hieroglyphic script could also be written either left to right →, right to left 
←, or vertically in columns ↓, and there was a certain amount of artistic license for how the characters were arranged. 

So think about this, even when the symbols were being used to represent phonetic sounds and put together to represent spoken words (left-brained), their visual connection to certain concepts (right-brained) could not be lost. An eye looks like an eye, even if it is being used as a letter. Am👁r👁te? 

 Steele of Mennahkt, c. 1321 B.C. - Wikimedia

While the evolved scripts we have today maybe allow for greater amounts of logical precision and ease of writing, they accomplish this by sacrificing a certain depth of meaning and a more expansive intuitive type of transference of information and ideas. 

The ability to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs was lost for much of modern history, from the late 4th century A.D., until the (fortunate) discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 A.D., which eventually enabled for its possible reconstruction (. . . or at least that's the popular story, maybe other people figured it out sooner or kept the knowledge alive in secret 🤷‍♀️). Those who pondered the carvings during those years did not understand its phonetic complexity. 

It is arguable whether the ancient Greeks or Romans understood hieroglyphics. The Greeks almost certainly did not, since from their viewpoint, hieroglyphics were not phonetic signs but symbols of a more abstruse and allegorical nature. The humanist revival of the European Middle Age, although it produced a set of Italian-designed hieroglyphics, gave no further insight into the original Egyptian. https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyph

Which is kind of a strange development considering many of the most renowned Greek philosophers, studied at Egyptian mystery schools. However, it is also not strange given that certain ideas taken from the Egyptians were probably not appreciated, or were considered to be threatening by the powers that were. It is an interesting question as to how much of a factor this was. Certain people suggest that persecution was present.

It is clear then that Socrates offended the Athenian government simply because he pursued the study of astronomy and probably that of geology; and that the other philosophers were persecuted for the same reason. But the study of science was a required condition to membership in the Egyptian Mystery Systems, and its purpose was the liberation of the Soul from the ten bodily fetters, and if the Greek philosophers studied the sciences, then they were fulfilling a required condition to membership in the Egyptian Mystery System. Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James[1954], ch.3 http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/stle/stle07.htm

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David(1787)

It is also the case that the reign of the pharaohs came to an end in 30 BC which would have contributed to the loss of the Egyptian priesthood and customs.  

The final straw, however, came when Cleopatra lost to Rome in the battle of Actium in 30BC. She was Egypt's last pharaoh and Egypt became a mere province of Rome.   

The use of hieroglyphics struggled on for several centuries, but it dwindled away to be replaced by the  Roman alphabet. Eventually, it fell into complete disuse and became a total mystery to humans. https://www.egyptabout.com/2017/01/when-did-hieroglyphics-stop.html

 And,

After the Emperor Theodsius I ordered the closure of all pagan temples throughout the Roman empire in the late 4th century AD, knowledge of the hieroglyphic script was lost https://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian.htm

So, it was not necessarily a complete accident, even if it was just through lack of respect for the wisdom of ancient Egypt (and unfortunate happenings such as the burning of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt in 48 BC), that the understanding of hieroglyphic writing was lost . . . for a time.

Luckily artifacts from the past are recovered through archeological study and other fortunate discoveries from time to time, and attempts to rewrite history are not always entirely successful. 

This same sort of thing occured with the Mayan codices in Mesoamerica. Only a few codices were saved from destruction, and then turned up in Europe, such as the Dresden Codex. 

The Mayans had a pictorial script as well. 

Mayan Codex written on Mesoamerican bark paper.

Their books were intentionally destroyed by the conquering Spanish, the biggest offender, Diego de Landa Caldéron, Catholic bishop of the Archdioceses of Yucatán. This was done in order to erase their history, and body of “heretical” knowledge and practices, in an attempt to control and change the story, and affect the future. 

Mural by Juan O’Gorman, Biblioteca Central de la UNAM, Mexico City 

We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa - Clendinnen

Oh how odd, who would have thought? 🤨 🙄

People attempt to change history by limiting or changing what we see. The word history comes from Old French estoire "story; chronicle, history," from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry, an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire," from histōr “wise man, judge,” from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- “to see.” [OE] 

So the word "history" can be traced back to the concept of the things seen and related by those wise and discerning. The seers (wid-tor-ians) of the things, tell the tales, or spell the spells. The most honest of these weid-tors (seers) being weeders of false history, but not weeders of information. It is against the spirit of inquiry (historia) to destroy people's histories. The most deceptive of the histōrs (wise men) are hissers (snakes) who use their spells in attempts to rewrite, or confuse history, and enslave the masses.

Snake in the Grass, Dr. Seuss Political Cartoon, March 24,1942

If writing is from the gods then it is no surprise that these things would resurface despite the best efforts of men to wipe them out.
Things once forbidden pop up time and again miraculously, like also, the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of of early Christian and Gnostic texts dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, that were discovered in Upper Egypt in 1945. However, the many of texts, found were significantly damaged and have missing words and sections.  

The ancient Egyptians themselves were not innocent of rewriting, or leaving out information in their histories as well. After the death of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, monuments were dismantled, or hidden, and statues destroyed, and his name was even excluded from the king lists. 

These lists were often condensed, with some rulers (such as the contentious and disruptive Akhenaten, and even entire dynasties omitted from the record; they are not truly history, rather they are a form of ancestor worship, a celebration of the consistency of kingship of which the current ruler was a part. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/ancient-egypt-ap/a/ancient-egypt-an-introduction

The ancient Egyptians were so serious about their carvings and the power of the written word that they placed names inside of protective shen rings. The shen ring was a stylized loop of a rope. Shen meaning "encircle", and it represented eternal protection.

Shen

Cartouche, from French cartouche "a full charge for a pistol" (originally wrapped in paper thus resembling the shape of the cartouche), is the name given to these oblong shen rings that enclose names. 

Why should the name be treated this way? Perhaps because writing is a form of magic, or a magical formula, and it’s not wise to just write a name, spell it, put it out there unprotected. Names have power. A name defines a person. When a name is wrapped in the shen it is a name defined, loaded and locked for protection. 

Cartouche of Ramses II at Tanis, 3655 BC

There is a tradition of the names of gods /the divine, and /or demons not being named, or their names not being spoken, and also of knowers of names having certain powers over others [The Name of Ra]. Words are spells. Sometimes the spell is broken by not spelling it out even though it is known who is being referred to. Such as in the Old Testament The Name of God is written with the letters Yōd Hē Vov Hē, YHVH, or YHWH, But we don’t have the pronunciation, it was lost from history by the 3rd century BC. It is often assumed to be Yahweh, but is usually translated as The LORD, i.e., Adonai. And sometimes, simply, HaShem "The Name"(Interesting how in ancient Egypt names were written in shen rings, and as a hieroglyph were used for the word "name", and in Hebrew shem means name).

There is the idea that there are certain dangers, problems or powers associated with the writing and speaking of names. So, in both the spelling (writing out), and spelling (telling) of names. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the fact that what proceeds out of a person’s mouth, or how they read a word imposes their subjective understanding upon that person or concept. So it could be disrespectful for a uneducated or unenlightened individual to dare to define a divine being. They would be imposing their own history / herstory. Or, who would want to accidentally summon a demon by speaking its name? How dare a mere mortal speak The Name? Who knows if they are a good speller? 

Rabbinical Judaism teaches that the name [Yōd Hē Vov Hē] is forbidden to all except the High Priest, who should only speak it in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#YHWH

If anyone is a good speller it is the God of the universe, the most powerful magician of all. Magician is ultimately from Old Persian magush, which is possibly from PIE *mahg- "to be able; have power,"

The effectiveness of spell is based upon the powers of the magician. There is the magic of an illusionist, black magic, white magic, supernatural magic, alchemical magic, etc. However the proof is in the results. Without ability that produces real results, the "magician" is only a charlatan, i.e., a babbler, a quack. Just like a god that doesn’t produce any actual results is an idol due to this idleness, i.e., idol-ness.

The God of the universe was not idle. A most powerful spell was spoken and the whole of creation came into being, the One thing. Word. Logos. Om. Tao. Ma'at. Asha . . .

Painting by Catherine O. / photo Julie O. / chthonickore

The rest is history.